Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Thurs., Oct. 4) -- Football gets an overall passing grade while it's not looking good for I Feel Bad & Murphy Brown

10/05/18 11:22 AM

By ED BARK@unclebarkycom on TwitterCBS had Thursday’s two biggest prime-time scorers while the NFL still loomed large and audiences tuned out on two new fall comedies.

The Big Bang Theory and its spinoff, Young Sheldon, gave CBS control of the 7 p.m. hour in total viewers with 344,436 and 323,348 respectively. Fox then took over with the rest of its Thursday Night Football encounter between the victorious New England Patriots and injury-ravaged Indianapolis Colts. The game averaged 295,231 total viewers and easily won the 8 to 10 p.m. slot.

Among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds, TNF won from start to finish with an average of 126,806 viewers in this key demographic.

Now for the casualties. NBC’s I Feel Bad, making its regular time slot debut after a two-episode sneak preview last month, ran last among the Big Four broadcast networks at 8:30 p.m. with just 70,293 total viewers. The second episode of CBS’ competing Murphy Brown revival also continued to struggle, drawing 126,527 viewers at 8:30 p.m. after the preceding Mom fed it 224,938 viewers.

The second season premiere of NBC’s Will & Grace also performed poorly with 91,381 viewers at 8 p.m.

In the 18-to-49-year-old realm, Murphy Brown tied for a distant second in its time slot with 30,192 viewers while I Feel Bad tied CBS’ 9 p.m. episode of S.W.A.T. as the night’s loss leader with a paltry 15,096 viewers.

Here are Thursday’s local news derby results.

NBC5 won a downsized three-way race at 10 p.m. in both total viewers and with 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 again controlled the 6 to 7 a.m. slot while NBC5 scored twin wins at 5 p.m. TEGNA8 nipped NBC5 by a sliver to win in total viewers at 6 p.m., but Fox4 was alone on top with 25-to-54-year-olds.